Eurogamer frolics with NSMB Wii

One of the star attractions at the Eurogamer Expo 2009 will undoubtedly be New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Before the Leeds crowd flooded the halls, Ellie Gibson, Tom Bramwell, Matt Martin (editor, GamesIndustry.biz) and yours truly stole some hands-on time with the game.

Visible fun.

"I liked gobbling you up and spitting you off a cliff," editor Tom told me, after a brutal spell on the back of Yoshi. "But you should probably quote me paying tribute to the level design and how it entices you to cooperate one minute and compete the next, or something else that makes me sound intelligent."

Matt Martin admitted he'd "forgotten how fun 2D Mario was". "I enjoyed it even though I didn't know or care what I was doing," he said, pointing out that I "lost worse" than him.

Ellie, who will be sharing fuller hands-on impressions soon, said she tried the game with one other and two others, but had "significantly more fun" with the full complement of four.